Palou, who will remain with Chip Ganassi Racing in IndyCar next year after a lengthy contract tug of war for his services with Arrow McLaren SP, made his official F1 bow at Circuit of the Americas in FP1 for the United States Grand Prix. United.
Replacing Daniel Ricciardo for the one-hour session, 2021 IndyCar title winner Palou posted a best effort of 1m39.911s, which earned him the 17th fastest time.
Despite being two seconds slower than teammate Lando Norris’ best effort, Palou only made long runs on Pirelli’s medium compound and never got to try the softs.
Nonetheless, the 25-year-old Spaniard was surprised by the capabilities of a contemporary F1, having already clocked up miles in the team’s 2021 machine at the Red Bull Ring.
“It’s fast, it’s crazy!” he then enthused.
“Obviously I had the chance to test before the 2021 car, so it already gave me the feeling of an F1 car.
“But here obviously you have the traffic, you don’t want to get in the way of anybody else. And you have a car that’s not yours.
“I was trying to take care of the car, obviously not getting in trouble with the people who are racing this weekend.
“This track, I think, is pretty awesome for an F1 car, especially the super-fast sector. And it was beautiful to drive.
Alex Palou, McLaren
Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images
Palou admitted that “the car was so capable that I just passed it in some places, which I think was a good thing”.
“It’s better to push the limits and then back out if you only have an hour,” he explained.
“And I knew we only had one set of tyres, so I had to do it all in two laps. I couldn’t wait long, that’s probably why.
“What would I improve? I think just more laps and obviously getting another set of tires at the end would have helped.
“But our program today was not to go fast, it was to get data for the team at the start, which we did… And then we focused on myself. “
Palou tested with Dale Coyne Racing at COTA in 2020 before the COVID-19 pandemic which caused the cancellation of IndyCar’s scheduled second race there.
He explained that the McLaren was “more sensitive to the wind than an IndyCar” on the track, describing it as “close to what you feel on the ovals”.
“A bit of wind damages the balance of the car a lot,” he said. “And it was tricky in sector 1 today, which obviously didn’t help me on my first day and I didn’t want to crash on my only free practice! In an IndyCar you will obviously go much slower.
“I trusted the car 100%, but the car was capable of doing more than I thought…so I started pushing harder.
Alex Palou, McLaren MCL36
Photo by: Glenn Dunbar / Motorsport Images
“It’s true that in the slow corners I was quite strong but I think it’s easy, obviously, to have more confidence there.
“I missed the last two corners a bit, especially the penultimate one. But the car could do a lot more than I thought.
“It wasn’t confidence, it was that I couldn’t believe how fast I could go with the car.”
Palou’s IndyCar rival Patricio O’Ward will ride in Lando Norris’ car during practice for the season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.
